The Week Ahead: April 24 to 30

The entire Boca Raton office was pretty bummed when Elvis Costello canceled his gig at Hard Rock Live last September, but we’re overjoyed that the iconoclastic troubadour will grace us with his presence in this make-up date. He’ll bring with him 40 timeless hits, rarities and surprises listed on a giant wheel, which select fans will have the opportunity to spin onstage, thus dictating his music for the evening. Titled “The Spectacular Spinning Songbook,” this brilliant conceit ensures a different set list every night.

For some actors, a play is just a play. They perform, then they go back to their regular lives. But Michael Sidney Fosberg’s signature one-man play, which he has been performing for the past 11 years, is his life. It’s called “Incognito,” and it was inspired by Fosberg’s search for his biological father, in the wake of the separation of his mother and stepfather. He soon discovered, at age 34, that his biological father was an African-American man, and that Fosberg had a family, a history and an ethnicity that he never knew about. This impacted his life so much that he wrote this play as well as a 317-page book, published last year. His work has been edifying as well as entertaining: He teaches diversity training and has performed “Incognito” for NASA, the FBI and the Social Security Administration, among countless venues.

Not since the Farrelly Brothers’ movie “Kingpin” had the sport of bowling looked as simultaneously hip and unhip – as fashionable and unfashionable – as in the 1999 music video for Lit’s “My Own Worst Enemy.” The song that it promoted, about a regretful man trying to win back his girlfriend, remains the greatest hit Lit ever recorded, despite – or because – it pretty much stole its main chord structure from the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.” Nevertheless, if the group’s straightforward alt-rock riffage leaves any kind of a legacy, it will be with its creative music videos; the iconic “Miserable” video featured the shrunken band members frolicking on the seminude body of a giant Pamela Anderson. Chances are, nobody will remember Lit in 20 years, but, for commercial radio rock, you could do a lot worse.

Described as a “traveling one-man repertory company,” Robert Dubac has helped elevate the one-man show to comic heights with his previous productions, “The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron?” and “Sex, Politics and Other Headaches.” He returns to the Broward Center with his latest acclaimed show, “Free Range Thinking,” which is bound to offend audience members who live in ideological bubbles of any kind. With a mix of stand-up comedy and stagecraft, Dubac tackles relationships, politics and religion in a show that is said to cut through the spin and propaganda to reach something he calls The Truth. That beats most cable news shows.

Friday

Opening night of “Monsieur Lazhar” at Living Room Theaters at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton; show times TBA; $5 to $9.50; 561/549-2600 or fau.livingroomtheaters.com

The French-Canadian import “Monsieur Lazhar” arrives in Palm Beach County shortly after its nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Academy Awards. It deserved the recognition. This tender, touching and warmly comic drama follows a political exile from Algeria who poses as a teacher in Montreal. He gets the job, but he has his work cut out for him: He’s replacing a teacher who hung herself on the job, a tragedy that the school’s faculty is all too eager to sweep under the rug. Eschewing the clichés of many an inspirational-teacher weepie, “Monsieur Lazhar” has a great deal to say about modern teacher-parent-school relationships, and its messages transcend borders, language and culture. The movie also opens at Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth.

Ten years ago, the House Theatre of Chicago – an Illinois incubator for world-premiere plays – opened its first season with the smash hit “Death and Harry Houdini,” which shared the life story of the titular magician and his “lifelong war against Death.” The play proved so legendary that the House Theatre revived the play this year in celebration of its 10thanniversary season, with many performances selling out. That very show is premiering in Miami this week, and sure enough, the Arsht Center shows are selling out too, so get your tickets now. The centerpiece of the play is a replication of Houdini’s notorious water torture cell escape, in which he was manacled and dunked into a column of water. Magician Dennis Watkins, who plays Houdini, told a reporter that he even quit smoking to expand his lung capacity for this role.

Crafter and cupcake artist Amanda Linton founded Stitch Rock in downtown Delray Beach nearly six years ago, in effect anticipating the major trend of indie craft fairs that have taken the nation by storm. In fact, this Delray affair has become so popular that once a year simply isn’t enough. Stitch Rock will return to Old School Square in October, but until then, check out Linton’s latest venture, the Downtown Open Market, which has been running monthly in Royal Palm Place since March, and whose vendors chart much of the same terrain. The free-admission market offers vintage clothing and accessories, bath and body goods, handmade crafts, pet accessories, jewelry, art, baked goods and more.

Anyone who saw Madeleine Albright this past February at FAU knows that the erudite former Secretary of State can speak intelligently on any topic thrown her way. Tonight, however, she’ll be speaking with a particular purpose – to talk about her book “Prague Winter” (Harper, $19.79), which hits stores in hardcover this Tuesday. It’s a nonfiction story of adventure and political intrigue that looks as exciting as any mass-market thriller, set during a 12-year period between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Based on historical documents, the writer’s own memories, her parents’ written reflections and new interviews, Albright’s story takes readers from bomb shelters and prison ghettoes to the halls of government, placing the reader squarely in the middle of the tumult.